Logical Solutions do not come from Intuitive Thinking

There is a curious paradox in economics called the Giffen Paradox.  Generally, if the price of a good increases, consumption decreases.  The so called ‘Giffen goods’ do not behave in this way.  For example, in poor communities, if the price of bread increases, consumption increases, not decreases, a rather counterintuitive response.  The reason is that poor people have no disposable income, so if the price of bread increases, they buy less meat (for example), and actually end up buying more bread to make up the difference. 

Counter-intuitive behaviour is all around us.  Where do most pedestrian road accidents occur?  Unbelievably, it is at pedestrian crossings. 

In fact, as soon as you start thinking about it, the more you come up with counter-intuitive results - road traffic, we have learned that increasing the road capacity does not reduce traffic jams.  The list is endless.

What seemed to be a ‘logical’ solution, in fact is not.  Our ‘logic’ is in fact our intuition, and it is this that has failed us.   We have relied on our intuition rather than our logic.   If we were to look at these problems more fully, - possibly from a systems perspective, we might be better able to deal with these problems. 

Sometimes this effect is called the ‘Law of unintended consequences’ – something that is blindingly obvious once we see it, sometimes it is called a paradox, but it is our thinking that is at fault, not the world.

Implementing a solution that our intuition tells us is correct is an inappropriate use of intuition, we may end up with a rude surprise.